ubject with a sigh.

"Well, and what else?" she said to Christie.

"Oh, there is no more. What were we speaking about? Oh, yes; about
having patience. Well, when one has a great good to fall back upon,
something that cannot be changed or lost or taken from us, why, it is
easy to have patience with common little things that cannot last long
and that often change to good. Yes, I do think I am more patient than I
used to be. Things don't seem the same."

It filled Gertrude with a strange unhappiness to hear Christie talk in
this way. The secret of the little maid's content appeared so
infinitely desirable, yet so unattainable by her. She seemed at once to
be set so far-away from her--to be shut out from the light and pleasant
place where Christie might always dwell.

"I don't understand it," she repeated to herself. "If it were anything
that could be reasoned out or striven for, or even if we could get it by
patient waiting. But we can do nothing. We are quite helpless, it
seems."

In her vexed moments Gertrude sometimes took pleasure in starting
objections and asking questions which Christie found it difficult to
answer.

"It is all real to her, though. One would think, to see her sitting
there, that there is nothing in the world that has the power to trouble
her long. And there really is nothing, if she is a child of God--as she
says. What a strange thing it is!"

She sat watching the little absorbed face, thinking over her own vexed
thoughts, till the old restless feeling would let her sit no longer.
Rising, she went to the window and looked out.

"What a gloomy day it is!" she said. "How low the clouds are, and how
dim and grey the light is! And listen to the wind moaning and sighing
among the trees! It is very dreary. Don't you think so, Christie?"

Christie looked up. "Yes, now that you speak of it, it does seem
dreary; at least, it seems dreary outside. And I dare say it seems
dreary in the house to you. Have they all gone out?"

"Yes; and there is to be no six o'clock dinner. They are to dine in
town and go to some lecture or other. I almost wish I had gone."

"I promised Claude that if he was very good he should go down to the
drawing-room, and you would sing to us," said Christie. "We must air
the nursery, you know."

"I have been very good, haven't I, Tudie?" said the little boy, looking
up from the pictures with which he had been amusing himself.

"Very good and sweet, my